So in recent light of JPM announcing a 2billion dollar loss on a trade, I started looking to buy with the market sell-off. While we’re in a situation where we should tread lightly, I’ve got some money on the sidelines that I’m looking to make some longer plays on. In particular I’ve been eyeing BP. It was trading at about $48 a month ago and due to uncertainty and other market factors has dived to about $39 a share. I think this a great buying opportunity to get a small position started with a 4.2% dividend offering. I’m looking at this longer term, but still want to play it cautiously. I did accidentally enter a short-term position though. I put in an order to:

sell BP Jun 16 ’12 $40 put at $1.43

I figure BP can make a small move by then at worse comes to worse, I end up buying some shares of BP at $38.57, which is a price that I’m comfortable paying for these shares.

On other fronts, I’m still battling jet-lag, but it’s been helping to get my running kick-started. I got up pretty early today get my long run in. I have 10 half-marathons to race this year, with the 2nd one coming up in 1 week! I got 11 miles in this morning very slowly (~10:45/mi), but I’m trying this new thing where I just increase my mileage weekly and fingers crossed my speed will pick up with the mileage. The interesting thing is that this worked out well for the last race so I’ll see how this goes!

Also trying to get my 4th year meeting scheduled. As a graduate student, this is requirement to graduate and will almost tell me that it’s time to get out! I was given permission from my advisor to start the process, so I’m e-mailing my committee to see when they can meet! Fingers crossed it goes off without a hitch!

Alright and baseball picks for the day. So far my modified labby system is working. I was 3 for 3 yesterday hopefully will do well today:

HOU, PHL, NYY, NYM, WASH, TEX, MIL, CWS, STL, and SF are the picks for today. Let’s hope that I can get 60-70% so that I’m not putting up too much tomorrow. I’ll explain the system in a later post. Anyway, I need to get to writing a trip report for China and France/Switzerland and I’ll be heading to Minneapolis this weekend for my brother’s graduation. I’m proud of him and excited to see him and my family!